“So King George thinks,” said Simon; “but Caleb here says not, and quarrels because eleven days have to be dropped out of this one year, so that for all aftertime the years, months, and days, will go on in an even, regular and seemly manner.”
“And I rightly object,” replied Caleb; “and when the proper Christmas-day comes I shall keep it, and no king, no pope, and no Julius Cæsar, nobody, shall ever make me change the blessed day for any other falsely called by its name.” And Caleb put his hands to his three-legged stool, and lifting it and himself at the same moment, brought it down with a bang.
“Well, we can’t go wrong about Christmas-day,” said Mistress Margery, “if we but follow the blooming of the Glastonbury Thorn.”
“That we cannot,” answered old Forbes. “For hundreds and hundreds of years, long before popes or calendars were thought of, that Thorn has bloomed every Christmas Eve, and not only the one at Glastonbury, but every sacred slip cut from it and planted has remembered the birthday of The Child and never failed to blossom!”
“That is all superstition,” said Simon; “the plant naturally blossoms twice a year—that is all.”
“Indeed that is not all,” cried Mistress Margery. “I was born and raised at Quainton, but seven miles from here, and there, as you all know, is a fine tree grown from a Glastonbury slip, and many’s the time when, with the whole village, have I gone out to see the blooming.”
“And when did it bloom, mother?” asked Phœbe.
“Always on Christmas Eve. The blossoms were snow white, and by Christmas night they were gone.”
“But, mother,” said Roger, “why is the Glastonbury tree the best, if this at Quainton blooms as well?”
“Because it was the first one planted, of course,” said Mistress Margery; “I know no other reason.”